Svetlana - Snowfall Swing
(Self Produced, 2024)
Dr. Svetlana Shmulyian, better known as Svetlana, is a gift to America from the East. She has been making jazz music from the early part of the art form’s life in New York City, where Guy Eckstine christened her, “Astrud Gilberto in New York via Moscow.” In the company of her band, the Delancey Five, on her superb Night At The Speakeasy (OA2 Records, 2014), I said,
“The name Svetlana and the Delancey Five sounds like a Cold War cadre of marauding spies. Moscow-native Svetlana Shmulyian is the real article and brings a certain "other-worldness" to a jazz repertoire existing somewhere between 1920 and the Rapture.”
The singer is something else. She has released a short-play of three songs for the holidays under the name Snowfall Swing. The wonderful thing about short play and extended play releases is that they offer a small consumable amount of season’s greetings that will not overwhelm the casual music listener one quarter of the way into the 21st century.
Svetlana fronts a classic jazz quintet teeming with NYC’s finest: pianist Willerm Delisfort, bassist Kevin Smith, drummer Robert Boone, Jr., trumpeter Al Strong, and saxophonist Rahsaan Barber. Showing a fondness for Sammy Cahn, Svetlana gives an Egg Nog-rich performance of “Let It Snow!” and adds a thoughtful “Easy To Blame The Weather” to the holiday canon. The singer lays waste to her peers with a NYC Central Park up-tempo ramble of “I’ve Got My Love To Keep Me Warm.” But don’t take my word for it…
